My Language Library

Here is a list of my books on words and languages, sorted by categories. I will dip into each of them eventually and give you a sample of what I have learned from it. If there are books that you have enjoyed, please post them in a comment. I update this page regularly with recent purchases.

Reference Books

• The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2001 edition.
• Canadian Thesaurus, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2010.
• The Oxford Companion to the English Language, 1992.
• The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 1985 edition.

History and Development of Language

• The Origin of Language – Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue, Merritt Ruhlen, 1994. Attempts to trace all extant languages back to a common ancestral language.
• The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, Calvert Watkins, 2000. Has a good 29 page introduction to Indo-European.
• The Horse, the Wheel and Language - how Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, David W. Anthony, 2007. Makes a good case for the southern Russian steppes as the homeland of the speakers of Proto-Indo-European.
• The First Word – the Search for the Origins of Language, Christine Kenneally, 2007.
• The Power of Babel – a Natural History of Language, John McWhorter, 2001
• The Unfolding of Language – an evolutionary tour of mankind’s greatest invention, Guy Deutscher, 2005.
• How Language Works, David Crystal, 2005.
• The Story of Human Language, John McWhorter, The Great Courses DVD, 2004
• You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity, Robert Lane Greene, 2011.
• Through the Language Glass - Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages, Guy Deutscher, 2011.
• Languages of the World - an Introduction, Asya Pereltsvaig, 2012
• Myths, Lies, and Half-truths of Language Usage, John McWhorter, The Great Courses DVD, 2011

History of the English Language

• The Mother Tongue – English & how it got that way, Bill Bryson, 1990. An entertaining but not particularly accurate history of English.
• The Stories of English, David Crystal, 2004. Recognizes that there are many histories of English, not just that of Standard English.
• By Hook or by Crook - a Journey in Search of English, David Crystal, 2007
• The Secret Life of Words – How English Became English, Henry Hitchings, 2008.
• The History of the English Language, 2nd Ed., Seth Lerer, The Great Courses DVD, 2008
• The Story of English – How the English Language Conquered the World, Philip Gooden, 2009.
• The Secret Life of Words: English Words and Their Origins, Anne Curzan, The Great Courses DVD, 2012. This course is more a history of English than just word origins.

Punctuation, Grammar & Spelling

• Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss, 2003. A humorous reference to punctuation.
• The Grouchy Grammarian, Thomas Parrish, 2002. Does for grammar what Truss did for punctuation (and did it first).
• Comma Sense – A Fundamental Guide to Punctuation, Richard Lederer & John Shore, 2005.
• Dictionary of Disagreeable English - a Curmudgeon's Compendium of Excruciatingly Correct Grammar, Robert Hartwell Fiske (the "Grumbling Grammarian"), 2006. A dictionary of commonly misused words.
• Righting the Mother Tongue – from Olde English to Email, the Tangled Story of English Spelling, David Wolman, 2008. Explains why all attempts over the centuries to standardize English spelling have failed.

Word & Phrase References

• NTC’s English Idioms Dictionary, Richard A. Spears & Betty Kirkpatrick, 1993. Explains meaning but not origin.
• A Concise Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, Brian A. Pythian, 1993. Includes some history as well as definitions.
• A Guide to Familiar Latin Quotes and Phrases, Robin Langley Somer, 1995.
• Oxford Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases, 1997. 

Word Origins

• Word Origins…and how we know them, Anatoly Liberman, 2005. Subtitled “Etymology for Everyone”, this is a laypersons guide to the study of word origins, explaining the science behind the many dictionaries of word origins.
• Why Do We Say It? The stories behind the words, expressions and clichés we use, 1985, Castle Books.
• Dictionary of Word Origins, John Ayto, 1990.
• QPB Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, Robert Hendrickson, 1997.
• The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories, Glynnis Chantrell, 2002.
• Word Myths – Debunking Linguistic Urban Lengends, David Wilton, 2004.
• 500 Years of New Words, Bill Sherk, 2004. One new word every year from 1504-2004 (uh, Bill, that would be 501 years).
• POSH and other language myths, Michael Quinion, 2004
• Native Tongues – a book of captivating language facts…, Charles Berlitz, 2005.
• The Dord, the Diglot, and an Avocado or Two – the Hidden Lives and Strange Origins of Common and Not-so-Common Words, Anu Garg, 2007.

Specialty Language books

• Cockney Rabbit – A Dick’n’arry of Rhyming Slang, Ray Puxley, 1992.
• Born to Kvetch – Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods, Michael Wex, 2005.